Few people can say they have covered the Raptors for the 20 years of their existence. Doug Smith is one of them. Join him for the latest from around the NBA, current events and anything else he decides to talk about.

A chance for Raptors TV brass to make amends

Feel free to add the feedback in the little comments section; we see them and need to get back to the olden days as best we can given the circumstances.

Deal? Okay

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So, we’re two weeks from the start of the NBA playoffs – they’ll begin the Saturday or the Sunday after the regular season ends on the Wednesday – and it’s never too early to start hammering home this point.

To you people who drive the broadcasts over at Maple Leaf Sports and TSN and Rogers, do not – DO NOT – screw over the viewers any more than you already have.

It’s been shameful how you’ve treated viewers this year and if it continues in the post-season I hope all your ratings go in the toilet and you lose all kinds of money.

There have been too many games on your baby networks that relatively few can see; I can’t tell you how many complaints I’ve had about games on TSN2 and Sportsnet ONE and I guarantee you’ve lost new fans this year that you could have made.

(And I’m not even going to get into your silly internecine squabble about the role of The Network Formerly Known As The Score in this entire mess despite the fact your fight about that was as the heart of the screwed up scheduling that’s gone on all year).

I understand that TNT and ESPN drive the scheduling because they want marquee games at prime TV times. That’s just the way of the world and we live with it.

But you have to be in there fighting and you have to realize that the possibility to attract new viewers has never been as great as it is right now.

I get the pucks and what it is but I promise you this:

In our changing Canadian society, if you screw over loyal viewers and exorbitant cable bill-paying customers to show some crap hockey game instead of a team that seems to have captured the imagination of casual fans, you will rue the moment. The world is changing and you middle-aged white guys who grew up sitting on the couch with Dad watching the Leaves are not nearly as relevant as you think.
We’re a long time out, relatively, from the start of both the basketball and the pucks playoffs so you’ve got plenty of time to protect your interests.

After this season of nonsense, you owe it to a lot of people to make it right.

HOTH?
Quiet day yesterday, no shootaround this morning and the availability of Kyle Lowry and his bruised kneecap and Amir Johnson and his bad ankle won’t be known until close to game time.

And you’ve got Detroit at Brooklyn and Milwaukee at Chicago to pay attention to, although they hardly seem entertaining at any level.

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So, can we agree after less than a week that the new baseball replay rules need to be scrapped or tweaked or something?

As some of us feared, not only do they slow down a game that’s probably too slow as it is, we’re already seeing unnecessary trips to the mound or faux arguments just to give someone in the bowels of the stadium time to watch TV and decide whether a challenge would be upheld.

Finding ways to make new rules can be bent to work the best is what managers and coaches are paid to do and I think any blame for this awkward situation has to lie with the league that rushed through a new system without realizing how easily it could be manipulated.

I get that everyone wants every call to be right in every sport but that’s not how the world works. The human element in a huge part of sports and while extended use of video may sound good, we see in the first week that the drawbacks out-weigh the benefits.

Not sure there’s been a more loved and respected Blue Jay in the last decade than Halladay, who was dominant and professional and everything you’d want in a player.

But here’s my new rule for every baseball home opener:

They need to be day games.

I know, I know. Not really good for TV, not really good for working folks but I bet if they were afternoon games, people would still find their way to the ballyards and there’s just something traditional to me to have seasons open under sunshine in an afternoon.

It won’t ever happen but since I’m a bit of a big dreamer most days, let me have this one, too.

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You know that I think sports talk radio, primarily in the United States, is populated with loudmouths and screamers and “hey, look at me, I’m important” buffoons to talk before they think, right?

These two New York clowns – one a former professional athlete of some note – rip Daniel Murphy of the Mets because he missed two of 162 games to be with his wife when she gave birth to the couple’s first child?

This is 2014, right? Not 1954.

I truly fear for our society if Neanderthals like that are allowed to roam free on the airwaves.

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